Audiobooks are an audio recording of a narrator reading a book, typically a novel. Audiobooks were traditionally provided on CD or cassette, but these days are now provided in digital audio format as an audio file or package of audio files for playback or streaming on consumer electronic devices such as computers, home audio systems and players, and more commonly portable electronic devices such as portable audio players such as mp3 players and iPods, or other portable electronic devices with audio playback capabilities such as most smart phones, PDAs, tablets, laptops and the like.
Audiobooks are typically provided with audio in the form of a narration of the book. However, some audiobooks have been provided with an accompanying soundtrack that plays concurrently with the narration to enhance the audiobook experience. Such soundtrack-enhanced audiobooks require significant production time in selecting the appropriate individual music files to overlay the narration and compiling those music files with the narration audio to generate the end soundtrack-enhanced audiobook audio file. For this reason, sound-enhanced audiobooks are often provided as special features or just short sections of an audiobook like the introduction have background music. Soundtrack-enhanced audiobooks are not commonplace, due to the additional cost and complexity of their production.
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